death: people

I didn't understand why the British national anthem was called "God Save The Queen" - so I asked my brother what the Queen needed to be saved from and he said that she was being chased by swarms of bees that lived in Buckingham Palace. That sounded plausible to me at the time...

when i was little i used to believe to die i had to twirl around and kiss my toes at the same time.. so one day i was really sad because my favorite fish died and i wanted to die .. so there i was twirling around on my front lawn with my butt up in the air trying to kiss my toes at the same time crying "GOD PLEASE TAKE ME FROM THIS HORRIBLE WORLD" and all my neighbours thought i was totally insane .. and the men with the white coats came and took me away and i just got out .. HOORAY FOR SANITY

When I was little, I used to believe that my grandparents would never die & that only OTHER kids' grandparents died, not mine. Then they started passing away, starting with my grandfather when I was 9, & I learned that I could keep them alive in my heart. I'm 52 & can still "see & hear" them clearly in my mind. I will never forget any of them.

When I was little, I thought that when you died, your body went up to heaven via floating.

My family went to visit my Grandparents and I knew the trip had something to do with my Great Uncle and a “wake.” I wasn’t sure what a wake was or what that meant, but I knew that we had to look nice and we were packing Sunday clothes. On the first night, the whole family got dressed up and went to a big party. All the relatives, neighbors and old friends were there also dressed up and they were smiling and talking. It was an open casket wake and when I finally spotted him lying there, I assumed he was asleep. I didn’t understand how he could sleep through all the noise, but I kept waiting for the part where he would wake up and we would all yell "Surprise~!!!"

When i was eight my grandma died and to help me cope with it my mom told me that god took people with special talents or gifts up to heaven with him and the reason he took my grandma was because god thought it was time he learnt how to knit

I thought that everyone when they died went to hell. Why? They were always buried in the ground and hell was supposedly down there. The only people that went to heaven were cremated. So I told my mother that when I died I wanted to be cremated.

When I was litle, I thought we died and came back as someone else (recarination). I was positive in my previous life I was Minnie Mouse. Later when I went to Disney World I was disgusted at the thought of being Minnie Mouse since Minnie Mouse was "married" to Mickey.

When I was 5 and my brother was 4, a close family friend died. My brother thought that she would come back to life in 3 days. We were raised Catholic and he thought that the Jesus story applied to everyone who died.

When you saw a funeral go by, you had to grab a button on your shirt.

For some reason when I was a youngster I believed that if you died and went to Heaven the fastest vehicle there was a Ford Escort van (in white, natch). So for the last 30-odd years I've been determined to go to hell.

My mom told me and my sister that if you wear your bathrobe to bed, the sash on it could get tangled up around your neck and strangle you.

We sort of didn't believe this, but worried about it just the same. To this day when I get in bed wearing a bathrobe, I have to think a minute and persuade myself that the sash isn't going to come alive like a snake and wrap around my neck. It gives me a creepy feeling most of the time, so I just take the bathrobe off and wear a flannel shirt to bed instead.

Thanks Mom!

My grandmother owned a nursing home when I was little. I spent a lot of time there when my mom was working. of course people died there now and then. They told me the angels came to get them. But all i ever saw was the ambulance pulling up out back. so for a long time I thought angels drove around in ambulances taking people away.

When I was little I overheard my older brother talking to my mom about dying and something that I didn't understand about a "coffin". For some reason I thought that this "coffin" was in fact a large, terrible bird. I became terrified that a large bird would come and get me. Made sense, as a stork brought me...

I was very young when, having no realistic concept of the biological implications of actual 'life' and 'death', I believed that when a person was awake s/he was 'alive' and when asleep was 'dead'. The up-side to this was that death was not frightening because I knew that I would ALWAYS wake up!

I thought that you could stop your heart and die if you hit yourself on the chest hard enough. This of course made me fear for the life of anybody impersonating Tarzan or a Gorilla of some sort.